12th July 2009 - Who's made a mark this week? #104

Standing Tall
6" x 10", coloured pencils on Arches HP
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Last week's featured artist Sarah Wimperis (The Red Shoes) definitely wasn't expecting this but today she's the recipient of a Blogging Birthday Card on the occasion of her 50th Birthday which is TODAY!

Sarah's celebrating all this weekend down in Cornwall but if you'd like to say Happy Birthday you can do so on It's only half a hundred! on our group blog Watermarks.

The drawing up above is my pictorial contribution to the card and is of some of the pines which stand above the River Helford near where she lives and which she often paints.

Art Blogs

Making A Mark made it into the ‘Best Artists Blog’ section of the 100 Best Scholarly Art Blogs list this week. I was joined by Kirsty Hall (Up all night again......), William Wray (Urban Painter William Wray), Charley Parker (Lines And Colors) and Laura Frankstone (Laurelines)

This is a list which definitely is worth reviewing. It contains a lot of very good art blogs - although I don't know that it would have been the selection I would have made. (Now there's an idea for the end of year blogging poll!). My only reservation about the listing is that I'm not sure about the site it's on Online University Reviews (what's an online university?)

I've only just noticed that Sketchercise also made it into the list of 'best art communities' - which seems a bit odd! It's also not described accurately - which might account for the number of applications I've had to reject this week!

23rd international sketchcrawl

It's looking very quiet on the sketchcrawl front at the moment - based on searching for blogs for references to it. I know I didn't go out - but that was because it looked the clouds were threatening to dump rain in a significant way all day - and then helf off until the evening before doing so! Always the way!

• You can find most of the results in the Sketchcrawl Forum
• or the pages of Urban Sketchers - sketchcrawl (but there aren't many)
  
• July 11 23rd International Sketch Crawl - Atlanta Results on Sending Pages Out to Dry

Life Class

Matthew's back,
Life Class with Maggi Hambling, Channel 4
pencil on heavy cartridge paper
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

On Monday I started following Life Class on Channel 4 - - and a number of other people. These are the daily posts I did last week. The series was generally 'voted' a success by all those who participated in it.

• Monday - Review: 'Life Class - Today's Nude' on Channel 4 with Maggi Hambling
  
• Tuesday - Life Class - with Humphrey Ocean - drawing in the Life Room at the Royal Academy Schools
• Wednesday - It's getting embarrassing in the Life Class! - a lesson in how NOT to take a life class- with Royal Academician Gary Hume
  
• Thursday - Back on track with the Life Class - if you're going to choose one to view I highly recommend this episode by the only artist - Judy Purbeck - who was a very experienced tutor in life drawing
• Friday - The Final Channel 4 Life Class in Series 1 - with John Berger
  

Plus you can see the drawings done by other people and posted in the Flickr Group Pool and read various comments such as

• Here's another comment about it by The Independent - The sketch show: Can television teach you to draw like an expert?
• The BBC couldn't resist finding an untypical life model for an item about what life is like as a life model in Stock Still and stark naked
  
• The Daily Telegraph - Channel 4 hit with complaints over nude life drawing programme

Section 1.18 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code says: "Nudity before the watershed must be justified by the context."

Meanwhile Wally Torta (Crackskull Bob) shows us all how its done with a digital tablet in FIGURE DRAWING GROUP and also provided trenchant comment (I always wanted to use that adjective)

I think it's time to change our name to Norfolk Figure Drawing Crowd. It's a well-known sociological fact that in times of economic recession people turn to frivolous movies and naked models. As opposed to your senators and congressmen, who will turn to naked models during any old economic climate.
FIGURE DRAWING GROUP

Plus I also posted Another way of drawing people on my sketchbook blog. This relates to people who aren't posing for you and don't keep still!

Drawing and sketching

• This is the Pen and Parchment Blog. It's a blog set up to highlight aspects of what can be seen in the Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (June 2, 2009–August 23, 2009). I like the idea of blogs linked to exhibitions - so long as people know they exist!
  
• Thanks to Michael Nobbs (The Michael Nobbs - The Blog) for highlighting in Watching Hockney an iTunes interview with Hockney which I've not seen before.
• Jana (Jana's Journal and Sketchblog) went on a Monday Night Sketchcrawl: Albany

Coloured pencils and pastels

• CPSA (Colored Pencil Society of America News) published an update Summer Updates from CPSA prior to the Annual Convention and Exhibitoon which starts later this month
• In it you can find a link to the Silent Auction which CPSA does each year at the convention. The idea is the artist donates a small work and CPSA benefits from the proceeds. Having witnessed one of these and the bids process I can tell you there's a little bit of an edge to the 'competition' to submit a work which attracts a lot of bids and/or bids which are a worthwhile value. The link takes you to an exhibition of the submitted work - but you have to be present to make a bid.
  

Painters

• Jos van Riswick is a Dutch contemporary still life painter who lives and works in living and working in Nijmegen in Holland. He's been working on paintings for an exhibition recently and is displaying some very fine paintings in a modern classics vein in Daily Painting - Postcard from Holland. His work is not cheap but then good quality almost never is...
  
• Read the American Artist article Qiang Huang: Myth Buster. You can also see his work on his blog or his website
  
• Thanks to Neil Hollingsworth (Paintings in Oil ) for highlighting a painting blog which is new to me (and him). It's called Paintblog and is a Canadian blog which was established to highlight the great art which can be found online. It focuses on featuring different artists - typically painters.
  
• Susan Abbott (A Painter's Year) has been painting in one of my favourite painting spots - the Ochre Quarry near Roussillon

Portraiture

• See 'and finally...'
  

Sculpture

• New Curator has a review of Kirsty Hall in Art Friday: Kirsty Hall

NEW CURATOR will look at topics, issues and news surrounding museums and politics, technology, internationalism, individualism, expansionism, presentism and architecture. All together acting as a lens to see how the future of museums is being planned out.

Art Business and Marketing

• Joanne Mattera (Joanne Mattera) reviews Edward Winkelman's new book in Marketing Mondays: What Artists Should Know About Running a Gallery
• Nancy Pingree Hoover (Reflections from Life Fine Art) In Pinky & Rosie - A Memorial, Nancy has come up with a neat idea for finding subjects to draw for an exhibition and making a significant contribution to charity at the same time - so nice to see that 40% deduction from the sale price going to good cause!
• Check out how E-tailers Grapple With Sales Tax. This is a very useful visual from Visual Economics which is a website dedicated to "displaying complicated financial and economic information in interesting, fun, and easy to understand ways." It contains an important point which is a new legal requirement for e-tailers to collect sales tax from New Yorkers - Amazon lost the legal case to resist having to do this.
  

Art and the economy / Art Collectors

• There's still money in Monet's - see the Washington Post's Speakeasy blog post - Christie’s Sells Monet For $10.3 Million
• Art Market Monitor has a couple of interesting posts
• Is Anybody Big Enough to be an Arts Czar?
• The Secret of Christie’s Success
• It's maybe worth reminding ourselves from time to time How The Average U.S. Consumer Spends Their Paycheck. Another useful visual from Visual Economics which analyses the average income and expenditure of the average American consumer unit (2.5 persons age 49.8). The source data comes from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics April 2009. They don't seem to have a category for buying/collecting artwork or even keeping art supplies stocked up! It does however illustrate very graphically the competition for such expenditure!

Art Education / workshops / Tips and techniques

Art Education

• A VERY HELPFUL online guide by Nita Leland (Exploring Color and Creativity) on using triads - Painting With Three Colors. I love the fact that she identifies specific colours with compatible harmonies to to specific types of triads. Recommended
• There's a NYC Central Park Paint-out next Saturday, July 18, 2009 (from 8:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m). The master artists featured on the new public television series Passport & Palette, Kevin Macpherson, Joe Anna Arnett, Kenn Backhaus and James Asher, will be painting in areas between the Bethesda Fountain and the Lake. Artists and art enthusiasts alike are invited to join them by painting and sketching along with the master artists and/or simply observing them at work. The location is Central Park Between the Bethesda Fountain and the Lake in Manhattan.
  

Workshops

• I keep seeing photos from the Ann Kullberg Cruise Workshops for students of coloured pencil - and I always hear that people have the best time. Not surprising really when you have tutors like these - see The last day at the end of Pat's workshop on Linda Lucas Hardy's blog Workshops, News & Other Great Stuff for photographs of the three great tutors from the last workshop (Ann Kullberg, Pat Averill and Linda Lucas Hardy) and what they get up to! Linda's blog also has photos of the workshops.
• Art in Action - one of the longest running art & craft shows in the U.K.- is on Waterperry House near Oxford from 16th – 19th Jul. These are the artists who are demonstrating. I've never been but I've heard from some people that it can be good
  

Tips and techniques

• Paula Pertile (Drawing a Fine Line) has a very informative post abut Making Greeting Cards
• Richard McKinley posted about Traveling Even Lighter on his Pastel Pointers Blog
  

Art Exhibitions

One & Other website and webcam
Graeme gets on with being an artist (Sunday 12th July 2pm - 3pm)

• The fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square saw the start of Antony Gormley's One & Other project where 2,400 people get a chance to be on the plinth for one hour - for 100 days 24/7. Tune in to the link and watch the live webstream! Now when was the last time you saw installation art getting a live webstream sponsored by SkyArts? It's not all great art mind you - as Graeme (Sunday 12th 2pm - 3pm) was proving this afternoon! Just in case you're wondering this is how (see right) they get on and off!
  
• The Guardian has a whole section entirely devoted to the Fourth Plinth
• Follow #oneandother on Twitter to see what's going on right now on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Sq. Also http://bit.ly/x5INW @plinthwatch on Twitter.
• Heres the Daily telegraph Antony Gormley’s Trafalgar Square Fourth Plinth
• and The Times The fourth plinth art project: famous for 60 minutes
• There's an article by project creator Antony Gormley in The Times Classical art can gain only when it collides with street culture which comments on....
• Nicholas Penny is Director of the National Gallery and he is not impressed! Read why in 'Bloody awful' Trafalgar Square shatters calm of the National Gallery
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced a major exhibition this Autumn - American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915 ( October 12, 2009–January 24) in 2010 in Special Exhibition Galleries, 2nd floor. You can read more about this in Metropolitan Museum Announces American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915

This loan exhibition of more than 100 masterpieces of American painting explores a major mode of artistic expression from the pre-Revolutionary era to the beginning of World War I: figural scenes of ordinary people engaged in life’s tasks and pleasures.

• Artists involved with exhibitions at the Tate are providing free content on iTunes. Featured artists include David Hockney, Jeff Koons, Louise Bourgeois and Turner Prize winner Martin Creed. See Tate on iTunes U

Tate on iTunes U creates easy access to the range of media, over 400 videos and audio files categorised to enable users to go directly to their area of interest and browse thematically under artist, exhibition, Tate Voices, Tate Live, Tate IQ and guides for teachers.

• Shepard Fairey: Supply and Demand is a record-breaking exhibition at the ICA in Boston - which closes on Aug. 16, 2009. This is a slideshow of the exhibition. It traces the career of Shepard Fairey, recently named "Icon Maker of the Year" by Time magazine - read more about it in With Police Case Over, ICA Exhibition Offers Last Chance to See Shepard Fairey's Work

• Exhibitionist - the art blog of the Boston Globe - alerted readers to the plea deal done by Shepherd Fairey in Shepard Fairey, plea on Friday.
  
• Fairey has been put on probation and has agreed to ban himself in Boston (read With guilty plea, Shepard Fairey agrees to ban himself in Boston) after pleading guilty to destruction of property charges for pasting posters in the city.

• A small group of my friends and I learned yesterday that we've been juried into a slot for An international exhibition at Mission Trails Regional Park on the outskirts of San Diego - which is the largest regional park in California. Those of you living in southern California who care to make the trip in November 2010 can see work by - Louise Sackett, Nicole Caulfield, Gayle Mason (who will be exhibiting her wildlife art), Vivien Blackburn, and myself.. Many thanks to Louise for all her hard work in compiling our entry.

Examples of my drawings of cacti and succulents
coloured pencils
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Art Museums and Galleries

• De-accessioning appears to have come to Britain - as the Daily Telegraph reports Public art sell-offs heading into troubled waters

Book reviews

• I love drawing gardens and was very pleased to review a new book about contemporary artists who paint gardens - see Book Review: Garden Painters. It's a qualified approval from me as I can think of some ways in which it might have been improved. The blog post includes lots of links to work of the artists in the book
  

Websites, webware and blogging

• Influential marketing Blog has a post about 10 Stunning (And Useful) Stats About Twitter which comments on this 'inside look' at the Twitter world
• 72.5% of Twitter users have signed up to Twitter in 2009
  
• 5% of users account for 75% of all activity, and 10% of users account for 86%.
• 92.4% of Twitter users follow less than 100 people
• US is home to 62% of all Twitter users, followed by UK with nearly 8% and Canada and Australia with 5.7% and 2.8% respectively
• Tina Mammoser (The Cycling Artist) has a very useful post about technology Learn from Apple's mistakes
• Did you know that Clustrmaps have a blog (Clustrmaps Blog) and that you now have a number of options to change the look of way your Clustrmaps looks. I changed mine this week! Read Map styles | Estilo de mapa | Стиль карты CJ has just written to tell me that Making A Mark has been named and as one of their Users of the Month! Thanks CJ! :)
  

and finally........

In the light of the riots in Uighur last week (see today's article Security chiefs failed to spot signs calling for Uighur revolt in The Sunday Times) It's worth reminding you that the National Portrait Gallery is currently displaying a very topical exhibition of work by Emmanouil Bitsakis. He won the BP Travel Award in 2008 and his portrait project involved visiting Xinjiang-Uigur Autonomous Region (north west China). The exhibition amply demonstrates a completely different perspective of the Uighur people living in China.

See

• my review of the exhibition in Exhibition Review: BP Travel Award 2008 - Emmanouil Bitsakis
• The Eveing Standard comment BP Portrait Award faces our current affairs - they got it wrong about which award is involved but it's a good review of Bitsakis's paintings

PS Did everybody have problems with Google and Blogger today or was it just in the UK?